More Comments:

David Timothy Beito -
6/9/2005

I agree.....this is an important source of the proble. Unfortunately, the dumbing down of standards represnts a marriage of convenience between certain parents, students, and administrators. All of have slightly different reasons. As a result, there is no substantial constituency, expect perhaps non-parent taxpaeyers, who can be rallied to oppose grade inflation.

Interestingly, at the University of Alabama, the student newspaper, not the administration or Tuscalooa News, have been most willing to support efforts to publicize the problem of professors who hand out too many A's.

Shirley Knott -
6/9/2005

I am deeply perturbed at the focus of the ongoing controversy over grade inflation. To read articles such as this, one would suspect that grading only happens in universities, and that the problem springs up full-blown only in the context of university-level grading.
Hah!
The roots of the problem lie in several generations of parents who rewarded effort not results. The roots were more than adequately fertilized by decades of elementary and middle/junior/high-school education which captulated to this outlook and correspondingly rewarded effort not results.
The problem is not new, the problem did not and does not begin at the university level, and it cannot be addressed, as opposed to whined about, by focusing on grade inflation in the universities.
For heaven's sake, the kids are showing they learned at least (and perhaps at most) one lesson in their preperatory education -- effort is what matters, not results.
Perhaps we should focus more on what we are teaching them, and how?
Shirley Knott